I was surprised last weekend when my mother-in-law stated from the back seat, "That field there is where the Yankees camped back in the Civil War.   The Hazel Green people had to go hide their country hams or they'd a got 'em stolen."

We were motoring up from Campton on Rte. 191 and had reached the southern fringes of greater Hazel Green, Wolfe County, Kentucky. The broad patch is merely grazing land now. There's plenty of corn and 'baccer in nearby fields but the Yankees' field goes untilled.

When we reached the Buchanans, I asked Roger about the Yankee camp. He said, "The people around here had to hide their country hams." When I asked if they had hoisted the hams into trees, he motioned and said, "No, they hid them in the caves up near yonder cliffs."

I came to understand that at last the main troop came in from Ashland, and the Yankees and their growling stomachs went off south and west to win their glory.

I had a quiet laff on the way home, conjuring hungry Yankees, and caves and cliffs and wars and Osama (not that a ham would be of any use to him).   I suppose war's glory bounced over Hazel Green like a skipping stone.